


Still Life

by justinlovesart



Category: Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justinlovesart/pseuds/justinlovesart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after the ending of Mann's story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life

The midday sun had been high over the horizon for a long time, but Tadzio thought that the water was still cool, cold even. It reminded him of the early morning swims at the lake, under _Mademoiselle_ s watchful gaze, when mother’s windows were still closed.

The sirocco had abated a little, just as he had walked knee-deep into the sea, leaving the beach behind.

The Adriatic never seemed to become deep enough for swimmers to step free of its sandy bottom. He looked in the distance towards the coast of Dalmatia, shading his eyes with his left hand, and telling himself that he could have walked all the way to the other side without getting his hair wet.

His family would be leaving after lunch and these were his last few moments at the beach, a special concession to him and denied to his sisters, who were already wearing their clean travel frocks, their sand-free hair firmly tied in blue ribbons.

He should do something special in this brief time he had left, something he would remember less vaguely than the endless sandcastles he had built or the German man who had looked at him so intently in the last few weeks. On this thought, he turned around. Now the beach was truly deserted, the old man’s chair standing empty outside his hut.

A white panama hat had fallen into the sand and the breeze had pushed it upside down.

He touched his right side and remembered the pain of his fight with Jasiu.“I hope there are no bruises,” he told himself. This was not the first time he had fought with boys who had been his friends through the summer.

He immersed his fingers into the perfectly still water, then looked at the back of his hands, at his arms that had turned golden since their arrival at the Lido. It was too murky for him to see his own reflection, so he tried to imagine how he might look, a blond boy with a light tan and a striped bathing suit.

“I should go back for lunch,” he thought, and licked his own forearm because nobody was around. He tasted of salt.

He made the walk back last as long as he could, the sun drying his body almost as soon as it emerged from the water.

The beach had rarely looked so lonely, if not late at dusk from across the terrace of the Des Bains, in that hour that followed dinner but preceded darkness, when he would chaperone his mother as she drank her last _limoncello_. He would look at her in silence against the low line of the horizon.

Now, it all felt more abandoned than deserted. It was not only because of the white hat: ripe strawberries had been left uneaten on the table around which the Russians used to spend their mornings until well past lunchtime; a scarf was hanging loose off the back of a straw chair, forgotten; a sandcastle was still waiting for its tower.

One beach hut had been left unlocked and Tadzio recognised it for the one used by the German man. He would put the white hat in there: _Mademoiselle_ would want him to.

Inside, the hut was empty of all but a few unused chairs for guests who never came and a small writing table. On one side, laying on the floor as if thrown in in a hurry, was an old leather briefcase filled with papers. Tadzio kneeled down to look at it: “G.v. A,” he whispered, touching the encased initials.

“Tadzio.”

The voice startled him at first, but he stilled his breath and turned around quietly, with enough calm not to show his esurprise. Jasiu was standing under the small awning outside the cabin, his eyes looking darker than ever.

Would he ask for forgiveness by sliding his arm around Tadzio’s shoulder and whispering apologies in his ear, or by pushing his face into the sand? Tadzio stood up, preparing himself for both things.

“ _Il est mort_ ,” Jasiu told him in French, as he did when he was too nervous to speak Polish. He indicated the briefcase with a nod of his head. Tadzio looked again at the initials and realised he did not know what they stood for.

Jasiu took a step into the beach hut, bringing his shadow in with him but leaving the door opened. Behind him, Tadzio could only see the unfinished sandcastle, barely hearing the quietest sea of all his summers. Jasiu walked up to him, padding barefooted across the floor and the veil of sand that covered it.

He pushed Tadzio against the wooden wall, but gently.

Tadzio felt the heat of the small, windowless room against his back while Jasiu pulled his bathing suit off one shoulder first, then the other. He rolled it down slowly, looking very carefully at every inch of the pale skin underneath, but not daring to touch it, except for Tadzio’s cock. Around that, Jasiu folded his dark fingers and Tadzio marveled at the contrast between his own pink and that deep tan.

Tadzio had never had that done by a hand that wasn’t his, and at first he could only notice how tight the hold and how rough the palm of the other boy’s palm were. He kept being distracted by the little desk in the corner and those unused chairs, his eyes returning to the abandoned leather case on the dusty floor.

Then Jasiu licked him, right in the hollow of his neck, murmuring “ _Comme la mer_ ” under his breath. At that, Tadzio closed his eyes and for a moment saw his own reflection, as if in a mirror.

“I will remember this,” he thought, leaning more heavily against the wall and throwing back his head.

Afterwards, Jasiu pulled Tadzio’s bathing suit back on, but when Tadzio made for his cock he moved his hand away. “Next summer,” he told him, in the mother tongue they shared.

He touched Tadzio’s hair for quite a while, before leaving for lunch.


End file.
